“This is where humanity kicked off – it ‘s about time you came home” (Lonely planet Africa).Humanly speaking, that was indeed the feeling I had when I entered not only Namibia but Etosha National Park, too.

Entrance to Etosha wonderful world

The door to it actually opens up a new world, the world that belongs to Africa in the imagination of all of us, where there are finally lions, giraffes, elephants, rhinos and they are all free, in their natural habitat and not in a zoo cage.

Giraffes

You have to watch these animals in their natural habitat to understand Africa. Their slow movements, by day and by night, reflects the soul of this continent, so mysterious to us when we first stepped on it long time ago. The time doesn’t exists here, especially for them, so watching them drinking water at a waterhole can take hours, and once they have done it they start to go away so slowly that it seems to watch a show. This is the feeling I had in Etosha: it was like being the spectator of a show, of the most beautiful show of Mother Nature, where the main characters were her most bizarre creatures ever. The giraffes were the dominant animals of the park. There are thousands of them. I was so excited when I saw them for the first time that I felt almost like a baby. It is incredible how the Nature develops such a funny and clumsy animal. I could have watched them forever, observing their shapes standing in front of the horizons from far away.

Sweet and clumsy giraffes are among my favourite animals in the world

But certainly it was the elephant the one that has impressed me the most. According to Ryszard kapuściński in his book Heban, it is the elephant the real king of the Savana, because of his massive figure and his strength he is often stronger even than the lions themselves. And for the African population, the elephant embodies the real nature of this continent.

Elephants playing with the sand

One night we were in the middle of the park, camping next to a waterhole. I went there impatient to see some animals after the sunset, but almost sure it would have been impossible. The waterhole in the desert are like cathedrals. You get close to them in silent, and silently you watch what happens on the stage f Nature. If there is nothing you just need to wait patiently, and for sure something will happen. The silent around those places is unreal. It is not our world. We are spectators there, and we need to respect the natural silence of the place where we are. Any movement, any noise, is almost unnatural next to a waterhole. It’s Mother Nature cathedral, it is the place where She takes care of her creatures with the most important of all the elements they need: water. And all of them come to drink at the waterholes; around them Life concentrates at its best, lions and zebras, giraffes and elephants …they all have to share the same in order to survive. It is Mother Africa’s lesson, that you can observe it in the behaviur of all her creatures, both animal ands humans.

Elephant at night

The night we stayed in the park, I went to the waterhole without expectations but what I saw filled my eyes of wonder forever. A solitary elephant was standing next to it, drinking. It was unreal. The elephant, with his ancient and slow movements, spent probably an hour drinking. He couldn’t get enough of the water, he drank and rank and fascinated everyone with his grace. It was like being part of a documentary, like watching an ancient giant, like being thrown into a world where you don’t belong to and where you can only stare the wonder you have in your eyes. After a long time drinking, the elephant turned around and started to walk towards the darkness with his low and heavy steps. It was visible for another bit, until he suddenly desappeared into the wild, among those dark bushes where the night is the queen. Where do they go? What happens when they leave the waterhole, the stage of life? We will never know it. We are out of that world.

We were denied the entrance in the park because Grry had some row meat at the entrance. te issue could be solved by cooking it next to the truck

That night I had the same feeling I had had long time ago when I crossed the forest of Guinea on that told taxi in the night. In the darkness of the African night there was an entire world moving, and getting out of that forest was like being thrown out of it, while the forest was absorbing and cancelling it form our eyes and life forever, protecting that world from us all. It’s the deep of Africa, its mysterious and ancient nature that we will never fully understand and that will always make us wonder about what really happens in its darkness.

Stunning Sunset in Etosha

There is a sense of equilibrium in watching the wild. Everything has a rule, an harmony, a grace ad even if we are part of, in that place we are outsiders and we can only observe silently the majestic game of life that happens in front of us.

In Etosha we came back on the tourist path….unfortunately. A lot of caravans sadly appeared everywhere, and while it was nice to finally have the chance to get a warm shower in a clean bathroom, on the other side it was symbolically the end of our wild Africa trip where we have been part of for 5 months.

Perfectly beautiful!

In the park, the night we arrived, the truck had a problem and Garry was trying to fix it, leaving the engine on. After a bit, a very hungry man came there screaming at him that the truck was disturbing his barbecue. Garry tried to apologise and to explain that the truck had broken down in the middle of the park and he was tying to repair it, but that arrogant man just replied:” it’s not my problem, just switch off this truck”. The guy was drunk, and he came back after a bit with something like a knife in his hand, screaming again. At the end Garry switched the engine off and we all left to the waterhole. “It’s not my problem”: that sentence was the welcome back among the white people, in the white world. It is the most typical sentence of our world, where nothing is a problem for the others, where we egoistically think only to our comfort and don’t care of the others, often of our neighbours. In Africa, in my Africa, this would never happen. In all these months on its roads, often our problem had become the problem of the entire village, even if they didn’t have anything to fix it. That night in Etosha I got the awareness of the real difference between our world and theirs…and it was not a nice feeling.